Not much beauty? The east coast isn't beautiful? I'm gonna stop you right there buddy.

I grew up in Seattle and lived in San Diego. While both are beautiful, you can definitely get that beauty out here. The Hamptons and Montauk have some of the best beaches in the world, and the water is actually warm unlike in LA/SD. If that's too far, Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis park are excellent beaches too within the city limits (you can even take a public Ferry with a full bar to the Rockaways now) As for hikes? We've got those in spades too. Just take a look at the Catskills or the Hudson Highlands. You can even take a public train to several hikes, and it only takes about an hour and a half, maybe even less if you're doing some lighter hikes like the Croton Aqueduct trail.

Finally, London is gorgeous, but in my opinion NYC actually does parks better. There's not as many scattered through the neighborhoods, but the ones we have are better designed. London mostly tore down their old growth trees and built parks over them, so their parks can feel a bit barren. Olmsted felt differently when designing parks in NY and MA. He instead built around the trees, so our parks feel much more natural. Taking a walk through the center of Prospect Park, you can really feel like you're in the middle of the woods. Honestly all the Olmsted parks are gigantic and beautiful (Riverside, Fort Greene, Central Park, Prospect Park). If you're not seeing beauty or greenery here, I'm not sure what to tell you! Central Park is HUGE by the way.

Anyway, welcome to the city. You're going to love it. I too was sick of the influencer focus of SoCal. That's definitely a huge thing here too, but it's very easy to avoid, as there's restaurants or neighborhoods that just attract that kind of thing that you can avoid.